LEWISTON – City tax officials are used to all kinds of unpleasantness.

They get a lot of whining, a lot of lame excuses and more than a little anger.

It’s not every day that they get handed fistfuls of phony money.

Police are searching for the source of counterfeit bills after $2,000 in bogus money was passed on to city employees earlier this month.

City officials said a local man used fake money to pay bills at the tax collector’s office two weeks ago. City employees tested the quality of the money and determined it to be fake. They then reported the incident to police and turned over the cash.

Whether the man knew the cash was counterfeit remained unknown this week. His identity has been passed on to police.

Investigators said at least one person has been questioned in the case but no charges had been filed by Tuesday night.

Lewiston police were handling the investigation, although agents from the U.S. Secret Service typically get involved in cases of counterfeiting.

Police say there are normally a handful of incidents each year involving small amounts of counterfeit money being passed at convenience stores and banks in the area. The amount involved at City Hall two weeks ago is rare, they said.

In September of 2003, a couple who sold an ATV for $4,400 later discovered that one of the bills was fake. The funny money apparently originated from a bank where the buyer of the ATV got the cash to pay for his new machine. That case was turned over to federal authorities.

About the same time, a woman who was cashing in a certificate of deposit in Lewiston found herself with a bogus $100 bill.

She went to the police station and turned it in. The bill was locked up and the Secret Service was notified.

Police use details like cut marks, paper quality and security strips to identify bogus cash. Some fakes are very easy to identify. Others, police say, are of high quality and it takes a pro to spot the bogus bills.

Last week, two men in North Carolina were charged with producing more than $8,000 in counterfeit bills. Investigators said the pair used a home copier to make the money.